Let's get to work.
In order to provide more resources and support that we want to build into our area for educators and families, we first need to build a sustainable organization. We are proud to have 501(c)3 status and be an official endeavor of The James Gang, a non-profit incubator in Iowa City. This provides us with crucial support, non-profit status, tax preparation, mentorship and collaborative opportunities from some of the best non-profits in our area. With this foundation, we are confident in the trajectory and plans in place for Engaged Early Education's future. However, resources are key to everything and financially, all non-profits require funding to support their mission.
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There are several ways you can help today, which includes:​
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Purchase items from our wishlist for the Free Teacher Lending Library project
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SHARE our website, Facebook Page, Instagram posts and events with folks you know who may be interested
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Join our newsletter to receive upcoming area kids events we recommend and free activity ideas biweekly
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Keep reading below to see what our current fundraising goals are and the projects we are looking to fund!
Current Projects & Goals
Operational Fund
Establishing an operational fund for our first year ensures that our basic foundational needs are paid for so that we can put our focus into fundraising and growing our projects that help our community. Our current fundraising goal for our operational fund is $1,075, which covers:
- Website Fees for one year
- Other technology & software fees for one year
- Administrative Fees for our non-profit status and tax preparer
- Essential office supplies
School Year 2024-2025
During our initial establishing months, we worked on networking with several local childcare organizations, providers and families in order to begin to build our community of support. Although several providers do not operate solely during a school year format, many tend to operate their classrooms according to a more academic or structured school year with a lighter, camp-like feel in the summer.
With that in mind, Engaged Early Education aims to continue to build these networks among providers and caregivers, while also hoping to provide a variety of FREE resources to start their school year. These include:
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Books for classrooms & for teachers
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Social-emotional kits and sensory kits
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Basic art supplies for classrooms
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Free Junior Scientist programs or STEAM Storytimes to be scheduled in their classroom during the school year
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Fundraising Goal of $1,000 - free supplies and services that would get poured straight into the community in a variety of classrooms:
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5 Junior Scientists Programs for free: $250
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$250 worth of books, art supplies and basic classroom supplies
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5 Sensory & Social-Emotional Kits: $250
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Creation of 5 Junior Scientists Classroom Kits: $250
A Free Lending Library for Educators
As Veronica, the founding director, looked around her classroom in 2023, she realized how lucky she was in her new school. She had closets of beautiful supplies, administrators who asked how they could help and a beautiful personal teacher library she had curated for years. In previous classrooms, she hadn't been so lucky and many other educators she knew were also struggling to get even the most basic supplies every day or purchasing their own in order to make a dream lesson a reality.
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What if we could close that gap, just a tiny bit, by creating a completely free lending library for educators. This would include teachers from early learning centers, home daycares, preschool classrooms and home educators. There are so many possibilities to the kinds of items that could live in a library like this, but here's just a few examples:​
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Themed activity kits that include suggested books, full lesson suggestions and directions, any specialized tools needed and examples - these could cover various content areas and be simple, grab and go, engaging activity kits for teachers to utilize as they see fit when they're too busy to plan or just looking for new ideas to spice up their lessons
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One off specialty tools and items that a teacher just wants to use for a little while in their classroom like: an old coffee grinder for fine and large motor skills, Montessori cylinder block sets, kids microscopes, felt story kits and so much more
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Teacher resources like curriculum kits and professional development books and resources
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Social-emotional support tools, fidget and sensory kits and other manipulatives and tools that support learners of all abilities
The reality is - this is a huge project. We are in search of grant funding and organizational sources for funding this large project. However, our community has the potential to create this reality with us in incremental ways. How can you help?
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SHARE who we are and what we are trying to do with people you know via social media and word of mouth
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Share our mission with your place of work, businesses you know and other organizations that you know who are interested in supporting early childhood educators and families of young learners
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This project would require ongoing, sustainable effort and support. Currently, we have set a goal of fundraising $25,000 in order to fund the initial stock of this library, creation of infrastructure for it to operate efficiently, and storage for all of the library materials. This fund also allows for labor costs for library personnel to work with patrons on delivery and collection of materials during that first year.